Neville has gone missing he was last seen at the dentist. Many rumours are going around about this new Dentist and none of them good. Can you help Elise find Neville? Time to make a visit at the dentist.
Rating: Unsettling!
Completion Time: 45:36
Date Played: 14th April 2021
Party Size: 4
Recommended For: Anyone who wants to play this IRL room, but online!
In the marketing / advertising world (also known as my ‘real life’ day job), they say you need to be served an ad approximately 7 times before you make the purchase. The Dentist is a great example of this, because I’ve seen this room recommended by AT LEAST 7 people in various blogs, Facebook groups, and so on… So what did I do? I made the purchase! Teamed up with Escaping the Closet, we sat down to tackle the *shudders* Dentist online, playing along via Telescape from different corners of the UK.
I usually avoid the dentist like the plague. Seriously – kinda glad that they were shut here in the UK during lockdown as it gave me an excuse not to go. But from April 12th they’re back open. A moment’s silence for my teeth please. Thankfully, The Dentist is nothing like going to the actual dentists. For starters, there’s puzzles, and for seconds there’s blood everywhere… Wait what? You heard that right. Creepy!
The Story
You receive a mysterious phone call from a friend called Elise. A mutual friend – Neville – went off that morning for a dentist appointment and *gasp* never came back. Elise pleadingly asks you if you can go and check in on the dentist surgery. Did Neville make it? Can you find any clues as to what happened?
So, off you pop to the dentists to discover a very normal looking waiting area where there’s nobody to be found. The only thing you can find are many adverts for Invisaline (was this room SPONSORED by Invisaline?! Just kidding, these aren’t part of the experience but wow there were a lot!). Perhaps if you check the computer records to see if Neville checked in… But you’ll have to hurry! Even though there’s nobody here now, someone could return at any moment.
From here, it’s classic escape room – find clues to unlock computers, find keys to unlock doors, and slowly unravel the ‘truth’ as to what happened.
The Experience
The Dentist is a real life escape room in Top Escape Room’s site in Worcester that, due to lockdown, they’ve converted into an online experience via a programme called Telescape. I definitely feel like some of the ‘magic’ of playing this room is person is lost in a Telescape experience, but on the flip side this game is suddenly so much more accessible to anyone who wants to play it from anywhere in the world!
The idea is simple, you’ve got a 360 degree view of the room and you can click on anything that looks interesting to get a closet look. Unlike other Telescape games, the inventory system is quite different. For example, all your keys will be stored in one place, all your jars of teeth (don’t ask haha), all your puzzle pieces. To use them you enter the ‘area’ of your inventory, click on it to ‘use’ and must then find that part of the room to actually then drag and drop the items.
For this reason, it takes a little getting used to the controls, and playing with a smaller group (else lots of people will be clicking) is probably preferable too!
To help you out in the experience, there are a few video breaks to set the scene and provide context. At one point in the game the plot takes a dramatic turn *gasp* and presumably where the GM in real life would interrupt, instead you get a video providing a helpful 1v1 with Elise.
Also worth mentioning is that there are sound effects when cool stuff happens, and as with all Telescape games you can see where all other teammates’ mouse are on the screen, making collaboration on puzzles pretty fun too.
The Puzzles
In terms of a puzzling experience, The Dentist is your pretty classic escape room! And it makes sense, it literally is a real life escape room. As such there are a lot of puzzles which revolve around you finding things. There’s also a very high number of locks in this game, I count at least 10 – but they’re all super varied in how you find the codes or keys. Think 3, 4, digit locks, colour locks, directional, date locks, lockers, doors, swipe keys and so on.
Another very cool thing about the puzzles is that they make great use of the setting. As it’s a dentist’s waiting area it’s got all the usual things you’d expect – some magazines and books for kids, plant pots, weird posters up on the walls, a couple of toys too. But unlike a real dentist… *waves magic wand*… All of this is now puzzles!
Take nothing for granted and look at everything twice in this game! If you can click on it, you probably need it.
One of my favourite puzzles was towards the end and involved teeth in jars. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but it’s a great example of a multi-step puzzle that unlocked a cool area!
Overall
I enjoyed this! The creators have done a good job converting their escape room to Telescape. It’s not my favourite room (*shudders at the theme*) but it was just perfect for a light-hearted escape room get-together with a group of 4 on a Wednesday evening.
We ‘escaped’ in 45 minutes, meaning I’d probably pitch this game on the ‘harder’ level in terms of difficulty. The truth is, there’s a lot to do! A lot of different areas to explore and a lot of individual puzzles to be solved. But the best part of playing it on Telescape means that there is no time limit. Tackle this one at your leisure, and enjoy!
The Dentist Online can be booked for £20 per team on Top Escape Rooms’ website here.
